The Letters of Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman

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Whitman Walt. The Letters of Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

A WOMAN’S ESTIMATE OF WALT WHITMAN1 [FROM LETTERS BY ANNE GILCHRIST TO W. M. ROSSETTI.]

A CONFESSION OF FAITH2

LETTER I3. WALT WHITMAN TO W. M. ROSSETTI AND ANNE GILCHRIST

LETTER II. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER III. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER IV8. WALT WHITMAN TO ANNE GILCHRIST

LETTER V. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER VI. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER VII13. WALT WHITMAN TO ANNE GILCHRIST

LETTER VIII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER IX. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER X. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XI. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XIII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XIV. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XV21. WALT WHITMAN TO ANNE GILCHRIST

LETTER XVI. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XVII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XVIII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XIX. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XX. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXI. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXIII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXIV. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXV. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXVI. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXVII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXVIII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXIX. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXX. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXXI. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXXII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXXIII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXXIV. WALT WHITMAN TO ANNE GILCHRIST

LETTER XXXV. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXXVI. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXXVII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXXVIII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XXXIX. BEATRICE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XL. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XLI. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XLII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XLIII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XLIV. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XLV. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XLVI. HERBERT H. GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XLVII. BEATRICE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XLVIII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER XLIX. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER L. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LI. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LII30. WALT WHITMAN TO ANNE GILCHRIST

LETTER LIII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LIV. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LV. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LVI. HERBERT H. GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LVII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LVIII. HERBERT H. GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LIX. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LX. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXI. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXIII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXIV. HERBERT H. GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXV. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXVI. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXVII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXVIII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXIX. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXX. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXXI. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXXII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXXIII. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXXIV. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXXV. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

LETTER LXXVI. ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN

Отрывок из книги

Undoubtedly Mrs. Gilchrist’s “Estimate of Walt Whitman,” published in the (Boston) Radical in May, 1870, was the finest, as it was the first, public tribute ever paid to the poet by a woman. Whitman himself so considered it – “the proudest word that ever came to me from a woman – if not the proudest word of all from any source.” But a finer tribute was to follow, in the sacred privacy of the love-letters which are now made public forty years and more after they were written. The purpose of this Introduction is not to interpret those letters, but to sketch the story in the light of which they are to be read. And since both Anne Gilchrist and Walt Whitman have had sympathetic and painstaking biographers, it will not be necessary here to mention at length the already known facts of their respective lives.

The story naturally begins with Whitman. He was born at West Hills, Long Island, New York, on May 31, 1819. His father was of English descent, and came of a family of sailors and farmers. His mother, to whom he himself attributed most of his personal qualities, was of excellent Hollandic stock. Moving to Brooklyn while still in frocks, he there passed his boyhood and youth, but took many summer trips to visit relatives in the country. He early left the public school for the printing offices of local newspapers, picking enough general knowledge to enable him, when about seventeen years of age, to teach schools in the rural districts of his native island. Very early in life he became a writer, chiefly of short prose tales and essays, which were accepted by the best New York magazines. His literary and journalistic work was not confined to the metropolis, but took him, for a few months in 1848, so far away from home as New Orleans. In 1851-54, besides writing for and editing newspapers, he was engaged in housebuilding, the trade of his father. Although this was, it is said, a profitable business, he gave it up to write poetry, and issued his first volume, “Leaves of Grass,” in 1855. The book had been written with great pains, according to a preconceived plan of the author to be stated in the preface; and it was finally set up (by his own hands, for want of a publisher) only, as he tells us, after many “doings and undoings, leaving out the stock ‘poetical’ touches.” Its publication was the occasion of probably the most voluminous controversy of American letters – mostly abuse, ridicule, and condemnation.

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After two years of residence in Philadelphia, the Gilchrists went to dwell in Boston and later in New York City, and met the leaders in the two literary capitals. From these addresses the letters begin again, after the natural interruption of two years. It is at this time that the first letters from Herbert and Beatrice Gilchrist were written. These are given in this volume to complete the chain and to show how completely they were in sympathy with their mother in their love and appreciation of Whitman. From New York they all sailed for their old home in England on June 7, 1879. Whitman came the day before to wish them good voyage. The chief reason for the return to England seems to have been the desire to send Beatrice to Berne to complete her medical education. After the return to England, or rather while they are still en route at Glasgow, the letters begin again.

Several years of literary work yet remained to Mrs. Gilchrist. The chief writings of these years were a new edition of the Blake, a life of Mary Lamb for the Eminent Women Series, an article on Blake for the Dictionary of National Biography, several essays including “Three Glimpses of a New England Village,” and the “Confession of Faith.” She was beginning a careful study of the life and writings of Carlyle, with the intention of writing a life of her old friend to reply to the aspersions of Freude. This last work was, however, never completed, for early in 1882 some malady which rendered her breathing difficult had already begun to cast the shadow of death upon her. But her faith, long schooled in the optimism of “Leaves of Grass,” looked upon the steadily approaching end with calmness. On November 29, 1885, she died.

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